The Stalk Club (11 page)

“What did he say about Crighton giving the case to us?”

“He wasn’t happy,” smiled Nelson.  “He spent five minutes
telling me how Crighton should have gone through him first.  I told him he
should take it up with Crighton and not me, but he’s too gutless to do that.  By
the way, I’ve got a present for you.”

Nelson handed Robards a copy of the press release that he
had picked up from Marie in the media unit on his way out of the office. 
Robards quickly read it.

“Things are moving fast on this one.”

“That’s why they’ve put the A team on it.”

“Who?  Like the movie?” 

“No.  Like the series.  Never mind.”

While Nelson proceeded to give Robards a rundown of his
meeting with Crighton and his earlier meeting with Martinez a waitress came to
take their order.  She was tall and thin with faded blonde hair and had rings
of flame tattooed around each wrist.  Nelson’s memory recalled her almost
instantly and he remembered that he’d arresting her for drug possession on two
occasions when he worked as a Constable at the Cabramatta Police station during
a tumultuous ten month stint.  He glanced at her arms and noticed they appeared
clean of track marks but decided to order just an apple and banana on the off
chance that her memory was as good as his and she was in a mood to play games. 
The food was brought out in quick time and Nelson suffered through his fruit as
he watched Robards hoe into an enormous serving of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast
and coffee.

Ok let’s get to work,” said Nelson without waiting for
Robards to finish.  “First things first.  How far did you get with whatsername
last night?  What was her name, Agnes?”

Robards laughed with an innocent shrug of his broad
shoulders. 

“Let’s just say the old Robards charm worked a charm on Agnes,
eventually, but your phone call put an end to all that.”

“Oh, sorry about that.  Bad timing I guess.  How was
she?”

Robards smiled.  He was the kiss and tell type.  “She was
great fun.  It’s often the quiet ones who surprise you the most.”

“Lucky you,” replied Nelson dryly, beginning to feel
sorry he’d asked.  “Ok, on to more serious things.  What’s the story with the
video?”

“It’s all good.  I’ve got security video from six of the
warehouses closest to the crime scene.  I’ve dropped it off with Mike at the
lab and he said he’d pass it on to the video techs.”

“Good work.”

“It may take a while to analyse though.  There’s over three
hundred hours of it in total.  There were cameras pointing every which way.”

“Hopefully something will turn up.”

“What else have you got in mind for today?  Are we going
to pay the family a visit?”

“Yep.  We need to hear what they have to say even though I
doubt they’ll be particularly helpful.”

“They take care of their own.”

“Probably, or maybe they’ll surprise us and give us
something about what the old man was up to last night.”
”Maybe, I won’t hold my breath though,” replied Robards shoving another large
forkful of food into his mouth.

“But first thing after breakfast I want to head back out
to the crime scene.  I want to try and get a feel for what happened out there
last night.”

Craig jumped off his sofa and grabbed him mobile off his
kitchen bench.  He was tempted to let it ring out but the ring sounded
insistent to him even though he knew that was absurd.  He checked the screen
and was glad to see it was Bryce.

“Brycey baby.  What are you up to?”

“Not much.  Have you seen the news?”

“No,” replied Craig drowsily.  “I just got outta bed ten
minutes ago.”

“But it’s ten-thirty!”

“Is it?  I couldn’t sleep so I took a couple of pills to
help me out.  God I feel like crap now though.  What news?”

“It was Fogliani.  Emilio Fogliani.”

“Who?  What?  What are you on about?” he said shaking his
head in an attempt to clear out the fog.

“That thing you saw in St Peters last night.”  Bryce
said, his voice was insistent and with an edge to it.  “It was Emilio Fogliani.
You know, the underworld guy.”

Craig’s mind finally started to process the information. 
His blue eyes stared unseeing at the wall.

“Oh shit.  I’m not liking this at all.  I think I should
disappear for a while.”

“What?  Why?  Why would you do that?  You didn’t do
anything wrong?  You were telling the truth last night weren’t you?” asked
Bryce, with a slight note of accusation seeping subconsciously into his tone.

“Of course I was.  It went down just as I said.” Craig
snapped defensively.  “Do you think I’d lie about something like this?”

“No, of course not.  Sorry.  Well then you don’t have
anything to worry about do you?” 

“I’m not so sure, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” 

“Just relax.  I’m sure they’ll get the guy who did it and
that’ll be the end of it.  As you said last night, this has nothing to do with
us.”

A pale, weak, winter sun hung low in the northern sky as
Robards and Nelson arrived back at the crime scene.  It provided just enough warmth
to slowly dry the dew off the grass in the adjoining park but little more than
that.  Nothing was warm. 

On the drive to St Peters, Robards had set up a meeting
with Michael Fogliani.  The appointment was for midday at his office in the city so the two Detectives had almost an hour to kill. 

A single Constable from the Newtown Local Area Command stoically
continued to guard the crime scene - which was now just an empty, blocked off driveway - much
to the consternation of those who needed to use it to access the rear of the
warehouse.

The media scrum had arrived in force from eight a.m.
onwards.  They got their footage of their journalists standing in front of the vacant
crime scene, interviewed a few of the local workers, were frustrated by the
stonewalling of the stoic Constable and had mostly moved on to the next story. 
Now just a mere handful of the most persistent remained, hoping for an unlikely
scoop on further developments.  Although it was Saturday, most of the
warehouses and depots seemed to be a hive of activity.  A few workers on their
breaks stood by watching and thinking how poorly the investigation compared to
the shows they watched on the TV. 

Nelson always returned to a crime scene at least once. 
It was what he did.  He had lost count of the number of times he had learned
something new about a case from revisiting the crime scene on his second or
third visit.  He liked to get a feel for it, to take the time to soak it in and
search for the details that he may have missed first time around.

“Alright Pete, you be Emilio Fogliani and I’ll be the
killer.” 

“Why do I always have to be the victim?”  Robards knew
better than to argue but he did anyway.  Nelson always got to be the murderer. 
He was good at it too.  He had an almost uncanny ability to put himself in
other people’s shoes and get a feel for what they were doing and thinking at
the time of the crime.

“Ok, so I’m thinking that Fogliani either came out here
to meet someone or was planning a robbery or something.  You wouldn’t come out
here on your own in the middle of the night just to sit in your car and think
about life,” started Nelson.  “What do they store in the warehouse?” he said,
nodding toward the closest building.

“The guy I spoke to said it’s basically just a depot to
house imported gardening supplies.” 

“Seems an unlikely target then, unless he had a big
backyard or unless they were importing drugs at the same time or something. 
That’s been done before.”

“Maybe.  Seems legit though.”

“I wonder if the Foglianis lease or own any floor space around
here.”

“Good question.  We can ask them later.”

“Anyway, whatever the reason he was here, he was sitting
in his car at the time he was shot,” said Nelson, indicating the rectangular
outline that had been taped on the ground where the car had been parked. 

“And as far as we can tell, he came alone,” added
Robards. 

“Why would he do that?  I mean why would he be out here
alone in the middle of the night?”

Nelson watched as Robards thought hard. 

“It would have to be a meeting.  But I wouldn’t come out
here in the middle of the night unless I was armed.”

“But we didn’t find any weapon on Fogliani did we?  And
the body didn’t appear to have been tampered with because he still had eight
hundred bucks in his wallet, so let’s assume for the time being that he didn’t
bring a weapon.”

“It was fifteen hundred bucks, not eight hundred.  That
would mean that he felt comfortable, not threatened by whoever he was coming to
meet.  Maybe it was an old friend, or a business associate, or even a woman.”

“Right.  He’s not stupid.  Gangsters don’t normally live
to become sixty-one year old Grandpas unless they’re ahead of the game.” 

Robards moved to a position inside the rectangular outline
and pretended to be Emilio Fogliani sitting in his car.  Nelson stood where he
thought the shooter would have fired from based on the information supplied by Mike
Martinez.  The few journalists who had remained on site focused their attention
and their cameras on the two Detectives who acted out their macabre play in
front of them.

“But then, while he was waiting, someone walked up to the
car and bam, bam, bam, shot him in the chest and head.” 

Nelson tried to imagine the scene but struggled to bring
it to life.  He shook his head and massaged the back of his neck, trying to
fight off the lethargy that felt like it was seeping into his mind.  He was
ready for another coffee whereas Robards, who was existing on even less sleep
than him, still looked sharp. 

“I’m just not feeling this one Pete.  Nothing feels
right.  Have you got any ideas?”

Pete Robards rubbed his chin for a moment as he thought. 

“I’m thinking, that because there were no defensive
wounds on the body, he probably didn’t see it coming.  That either the person
who he was meeting pulled out a gun and shot him before he had a chance to
react, or maybe the shooter sneaked up to the car and completely surprised him.” 

Nelson surveyed the area from where he was standing,
trying to mentally factor in Robards’ theories. 

“That sounds reasonable and yet….”

“What?  What is it?”

“Well in some ways it smells like a hit.  I mean, the
money was left in the wallet, he was out here in this place in the middle of
the night alone, and he was shot from close range.  It has characteristics of a
clean, well organised hit.”

“But why does someone decide to whack a retired sixty-one
year old gangster?  Why now?”

“That’s the sixty-four dollar question.  Let’s go ask
Michael Fogliani what he thinks.”

Michael Fogliani’s company offices were located on the thirty-third
floor of the Dresden Place office block on Pitt Street in the centre of the
city.  Nelson insisted on stopping for a bottle of water and a ham and salad
sandwich from the little café in the foyer to fill the gnawing hole in his
stomach that the fruit he had eaten earlier had not even gone close to
filling.  He and Robards rode the high speed elevator to their destination,
yawning to pop their ears as they ascended.

“Why don’t you take the lead on this one Pete,” Nelson
muffled through a mouthful.  “I’ll butt in when I’m good and ready.”

“Sure thing.” 

Nelson tucked the remainder of his sandwich into his
pocket as they pushed through the glass doors of the offices which occupied a
quarter of the floor.  They were greeted by a young woman wearing a
professional looking business suit and a lustrous olive complexion who ushered
them to a comfortable leather couch in the foyer.  She politely asked them to
wait for Michael Fogliani to finish up a conference call.  Nelson occupied
himself with the remainder of his sandwich while they waited.

After twenty minutes, Michael Fogliani came out to greet
them, accompanied by another man.  Fogliani was immaculately dressed in what
Nelson guessed was a thousand dollar Italian suit but Robards knew was actually
closer to four thousand.  It made Nelson momentarily peruse his own apparel
which he knew could not compete.   

“Sorry to keep you waiting Detectives,” he said, shaking
hands with each Detective and meeting their eyes.  “This is my family solicitor
David Marini,” he said, introducing the tall, lean man at his side.  “I’d like
him to sit in on our conversation if that’s alright.”  Nelson wasn’t surprised
by the addition.  He thought to himself that Michael Fogliani probably didn’t
even take a crap without a solicitor present to advise him of any potential ramifications. 
Nelson and Robards exchanged brief handshakes and tight smiles with the
solicitor who smiled back at them like a shark circling a school of baitfish.